JP 2011-066046A discloses an example of an article transport facility that has multiple vertical transport apparatuses (4) for transporting articles between transport target locations that are set at different floors in a semiconductor manufacturing factory that has multiple floors (1, 2, 1) in the vertical direction (note that the reference signs in parentheses in this section are reference signs used in the cited document (e.g., FIG. 1)). In the aforementioned document, a vertical transport apparatus (4) is provided for transporting articles between a stocker-only floor (2) and a second floor (1) that is higher than the stocker-only floor (2), and a separate vertical transport apparatus (4) is provided for transporting articles between the stocker-only floor (2) and a first floor (1) that is lower than the stocker-only floor (2). In other words, a second-floor vertical transport apparatus (4) and a first-floor vertical transport apparatus (4) are installed at different locations in a view along the vertical direction.
In order to provide the article transport facility in an installation region that is compact in a view along the vertical direction, it is preferable that a single vertical transport apparatus (4) connects the first floor (1) and the second floor (1) across the stocker-only floor (2). However, when moving the article transport moving body a long distance in the vertical direction, if a belt-driven technique for example is employed, various problems related to the long transport distance arise, such as the problem of meandering of the lengthy driving belt. For this reason, in an article transport facility for transporting articles over relatively long distances in the vertical direction, there are cases where the vertical transport section is divided and assigned to different vertical transport apparatuses.
FIG. 8 shows one example of such a vertical transport facility. As shown in FIG. 8, an apparatus assigned to the lower floors (lower-floor transport apparatus K21 in FIG. 8) and an apparatus assigned to the upper floors (upper-floor transport apparatus K22 in FIG. 8) are provided as vertical transport apparatuses. The lower-floor transport apparatus K21 and the upper-floor transport apparatus K22 are provided in a positional relationship according to which the upper end portion of the vertical transport range of the lower-floor transport apparatus K21 is overlapped in the vertical direction with the lower end portion of the vertical transport range of the upper-floor transport apparatus K22 (i.e., a positional relationship of being overlapped in a view along a lateral direction that is orthogonal to the vertical direction), and in a positional relationship of being separated from each other in a view along the vertical direction.
A horizontal transport apparatus V (e.g., a carriage or roller conveyor) is provided at the floor that is in the range where the lower-floor transport apparatus K21 and the upper-floor transport apparatus K22 are overlapped in the vertical direction, and the horizontal transport apparatus V transports articles in the horizontal direction between a moving body T of the upper-floor transport apparatus K22 and a moving body T of the upper-floor transport apparatus K22. Specifically, the lower-floor transport apparatus K21 delivers an article to the horizontal transport apparatus V, and the horizontal transport apparatus V transports the article and delivers it to the upper-floor transport apparatus K22, thus making it possible to transport articles from a lower floor and to an upper floor. Also, conversely, the upper-floor transport apparatus K22 delivers an article to the horizontal transport apparatus V, and the horizontal transport apparatus V transports the article and delivers it to the lower-floor transport apparatus K21, thus making it possible to transport articles from an upper floor and to a lower floor.
In this way, by using the horizontal transport apparatus V to transport articles between the two vertical transport apparatuses, it is possible to appropriately transport articles even in the case where the vertical transport distance for a transport target article is long. However, in a configuration such as that shown in FIG. 8, a transport apparatus for transporting articles in the horizontal direction needs to be installed in addition to the transport apparatuses for transporting articles in the vertical direction, and a large installation space is required in order to provide all of these transport apparatuses.